Whistleblowers And The Unravelling Corruption In Croatia

 

Fear of reprisals for reporting wrongdoing, whistleblowing on corruption or possible corruption, breaches of legislative regulations etc. is a real concern when fighting corruption and this fear is very pronounced in Croatia. Croatia (like all former Yugoslavia member states) is a country riddled with entrenched corruption stemming from the communist public service and administration culture and it needs a stronger whistleblowing regime. To have a strong whistleblowing regime it means freedom from damaging consequences for those who report wrongdoing and it also means that the number of whistleblowers present and active needs to be high. That is, the number of people raising complaints and pointing to wrongdoing.  That means Croatia needs better protection laws for whistleblowers; better freedom of information laws; a third party to report wrongdoing to in a process of operational  “checks and balances”; cultural change at the organisational and individual levels; and compensation for those suffering retaliation for speaking out.

According to the Croatian justice ministry’s June 2017 issue of Action Plan for 2017-2018 under the Implementation of the Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2015-2020 (PDF of Action Plan), the law that would, among other, make provisions for the protection of whistleblowers should reach the parliament chambers in the third and fourth quarters of 2018. The justice ministry has already established a working group under the government’s Advisory Committee On Combating Corruption.

The above anti-corruption strategy recognises and acknowledges the fundamental role of whistleblowers in highlighting corrupt practices and in contributing to enhance transparency and political accountability. The strategy stresses the “need” to guarantee whistleblowers effective judicial protection, including measures to strengthen judicial transparency, enhance the reporting system for illegal conduct, and complete the regulatory framework to safeguard whistleblowers.

Croatia’s economy is presently overcast by thick clouds of unease and suspicions of major corruption emerging from the Agrokor affair. Related to the Agrokor and its majority owner Ivica Todoric affairs threatening to bankrupt the country once debt recovery claims, especially those from foreign banks such as Russia’s Sberbank, come knocking on the door sits, of course, Pandora’s box of corruption at the highest levels of political echelons. Should the lid of that Pandora’s box be lifted then even if all the “evils” escape into the open the mythical hope (for justice and good) that should remain inside the box is likely to be weak and flimsy, if at all existing.

To open Pandora’s box means to perform an action that may seem small or innocent, but that turns out to have severely detrimental and far-reaching negative consequences for those who open the box and for those associated with them in dealings. It was about one month ago that a former member of the Liberal Party in Croatia, Bruno Mirtl,  revealed to the public that over 10 years ago he received 50,000 kuna (about 6,500 Euros) for the party’s funding from Ivica Todoric of Agrokor, In the days before Todoric’s arrest in London, it was announced that Agrokor – which had enjoyed privileged treatment by all Croatian governments for decades – had filed false accounts, hiding a loss of several billion Euros.

As Mirtl rightly observes, if even such a small party as his own obtained unlawful funding by Todoric, then there is no doubt that the main, more influential parties (Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ and Social Democratic Party/SDP) received much more substantial sums from the same source.

Mirtl’s testimonial account could trigger a domino effect on the Croatian political scene, forcing drastic and forced exodus from the major parties of significant members and political power-brokers come wheelers and dealers. But the domino effect in a political playground can only happen if those fighting against corruption possess hope that such battles can in effect be won. If one was to judge the strength of that hope upon past experiences then cover-ups, stalling of legal processes etc. that have occurred in similar circumstances, that hope will evaporate into thin air. It would seem that major political players from the major political parties, supported by the bent mainstream media are digging their heels in and trying to suppress the Mirtl and Todoric affair under similar connotations that permitted Todoric to pull wool over everyone’s eyes when it came to the origins of his enormous personal wealth.

This goes without saying that if the whistleblower protection is inserted into the legislation draft, one really never knows how even the tightest of plans for such legislation to go ahead can be hacked out of existence, the HDZ government and SDP opposition (as both have governed the country over periods in the last two decades, after Homeland War and may have had their fingers deeply immersed in the corruption pie) would no doubt try their damnedest to  find solutions that ensure wolves (guild owners, managers, senior political officials) remain fully satisfied and the sheep, though perhaps reduced in number, remain anaesthetised.

And the fact that the recently established Parliamentary Inquiry Committee (which is in no way independent of political parties as it should be) on Agrokor is about to be extinguished lends itself to more unrest and recriminations across parliamentary benches. The governing HDZ insists that the applicable legislation requires for the Committee to stop operations once legal proceedings directly related to the reason why the Committee is set up commence, the Committee has no further jurisdiction. The SDP opposition, on the other hand, think differently and says the Committee can continue its operations regardless of separate legal proceedings held in court. Given SDP’s history as well as HDZ’s one doubts that when it comes to unearthing details of corruption in this case the dispute between the two major political parties about whether the Committee can or cannot continue appears blatantly contrived.  It does leave room for speculation as to the genuineness within the motives to set up such an inquiry in the first place and how much of its rushed start has to do with throwing dust in public’s eyes, giving the outlook of real search for corruption was afoot when, in fact, it was all an exercise to win on time.  The real crunching of corrupt culprits and their ill-gotten wealth may never even reach the door that leads into the room where justice and consequences for corruption are dished out as a matter of normal governance of Croatia.

Not all the sluggishness and lack of action from Croatia’s leadership when it comes to affirmative matters and getting things done for whistleblowers, upon whose existence fighting corruption largely depends, can be attributed to the governments of present and past. Croatia’s presidents since year 2000 have not stepped up to the action mark either. And this goes for the present president Kolinda Grabar-KItarovic as well. Shortly after taking office as president of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic appointed Vesna Balenovic as her commissioner/adviser for whistleblowing issues. Vesna Balenovic is a well-known whistleblower, who few years ago denounced some of the executives of the INA oil company (of national importance) where she was employed. She was immediately dismissed, ending up with defamation charges by then Chairman of INA’s Board of Directors Tomislav Dragicevic and former Minister of Finance Slavko Linic. Later on, Chairman of INA’s Supervisory Board Davor Stern advanced the idea that Vesna Balenovic could be re-admitted into the company as commissioner for the fight against corruption. This never happened, but Balenovic has remained present in public life as founder and president of the Zviždač association (Whistleblower Association). INA has stopped being a public company for some time, as the administrative rights were transferred to Hungarian MOL (this matter is the subject in criminal proceedings for corruption waged now for years against former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader). This deal was accompanied by extensive corruption (refer for example to former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader case) that still weighs not only on the bilateral relations between Croatia and Hungary, but also on domestic politics and the work of the Croatian judiciary, which is definitely not equipped to face these kinds of challenges on a fair-and-square basis as it itself is said to be corrupted and filled with former communist operatives that should be lustrated out of the judicial corridors and benches.

Four months after being appointed as commissioner/adviser for corruption by president Grabar-Kitarovic, Balenovic left that office in protest, arguing that she had not even seen a glimpse of the president in the entire time she worked in her cabinet. One could (should) be a cynic here and say that Balenovic had obviously not realised that her only task was to be a trophy in Grabar-Kitarovic cabinet, who obviously has close ties with many persons responsible for or who have contributed to the sluggishness and alarming inaction when it comes to real fighting with corruption that would see deposition, lustration and even imprisonment of quite a number of political elitists.

Taking into account the constant quest to create a climate conducive to entrepreneurship, that would save the ailing economy, both HDZ and SDP political echelons, as well as president Grabar-Kitarovic, it is truly – in the climate where institutions and big business pander to the will of the governing elite and where public administration is heavily politcised – unrealistic to expect any increases to workers rights that include the protection of whistleblowers. Not increasing protection of whistleblowers in law and practice would, without a doubt, devastate further the very core of any economic or business culture recovery or hope for it. Ina Vukic

 

Pot Calls Kettle Black – Agrokor Corruption And Political Wile In Croatia

Agrokor’s owner Ivica Todoric,
leaves Westminster Magistrates Court in London,
Britain November 7, 2017.
Photo: REUTERS/Simon Dawson

High corruption risks and practices, political patronage and nepotism, and inefficient bureaucracy rolled over from former communist days are among the challenges that Croatia has not truly dealt with yet. To deal with that lustration would be an absolute essential.  Corruption and bribery are especially prevalent in the judiciary, public procurement, and the building and construction sector. While the primary legal framework regulating corruption and bribery is contained in the Criminal Code and the Corporate Criminal Liability Act, which make individuals and companies criminally liable for corrupt practices including active and passive bribery, money laundering and abuse of functions. Facilitation payments are prohibited, and gifts may be considered illegal depending on their value or intent. The mechanisms and practice of policing and monitoring compliance with the relevant legislation is practically non-existent. Hence, the road to what is there today with the Agrokor concern – too late to save the company or the livelihood of tens of thousand employees.

Media is running flaming hot in Croatia and abroad regarding the Tuesday 7 November corruption and fraud charges arrest at London Met Police of Ivica Todoric, majority owner of Agrokor business concern whose plummeting towards bankruptcy has also been threatening to bankrupt the country as a whole. One wonders, though, how much of this concentrated hype against Todoric has been designed to hide away from the media spotlight and responsibility of those not related to Todoric family or Agrokor staff. How many in the current and past governments, how many currently sitting in the Croatian Parliament have had their fingers in the Agrokor pie since its foundation during the time of former communist Yugoslavia.

How much of this concentrated media and government effort against the Todoric clan (however justified under law and justice) is in effect a ploy to save the government from falling! Friday 10 November is bound to be a day of upheaval and patience generally running very thin as the yet another vote (in about 18 months’ time span)  of no confidence in the government jumps onto the agenda for the day’s proceedings. Reportedly the opposition Social Democrats are seeking a vote of no confidence against the HDZ- led government.

As both Social Democrats/SDP and Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ have held government power in Croatia since independence from communist Yugoslavia and, many of their leading individual powerful members had held positions of power in the former communist regime, which institutionalised corruption and theft in that country, one truly cannot trust that Social Democrats’ motives are noble in this. How many thieves and corrupt individuals are they trying to hide, one wonders.

Croatia’s richest businessman Ivica Todoric, the founder and owner biggest private food and retail company, the drowning Agrokor that’s been shaking Croatia’s economy for months, threatening to bankrupt the country, was arrested after reportedly handing himself in to the Met Police Tuesday 7 November 2017 in London amid allegations of corruption, fraud. It is alleged that he has embezzled millions from his large retail company, leading it into a massive bankruptcy that is now an issue of national concern in Croatia and the countries around it. Todoric appeared in Westminster Magistrates’ Court and District Judge Richard Blake granted him freedom on 100,000 British pounds ($132,000) bail.

A European Arrest Warrant was issued after the firm collapsed, having amassed debts of over 5 billion euro. Criminal prosecutions have begun in Croatia against 14 senior figures at Agrokor, including Todoric, on suspicions of corruption and forgery. Todoric denies any wrongdoing, is accused of falsifying accounts to hide unsustainable debts estimated at £4.8bn (€5.4bn).

Asked by District Judge Richard Blake whether he consented or objected to the extradition request from Zagreb, Todoric said he would oppose being sent back to his home country, Reuters reports.

Prosecutor Benjamin Seifert, appearing on behalf of the Croatian authorities, told the court Todoric faced three charges back home — false accounting, fraud by false representation and abuse of position — amounting to a total alleged fraud worth about 110 million Euros.

The court heard that there was a worldwide freeze on Todoric’s assets.

This is extremely serious offending,” Seifert said.

The context in which I grant you bail is the knowledge that both within this country and throughout the world, your assets are frozen and your ability to obtain money is limited,” Judge Blake said from the bench. “The security is a very small sum in the context of what sums I have heard being spoken of.”

The judge also set conditions requiring that Todoric wear an electronic tag between midnight and 3 a.m., sign in at a London police station three times a week and give up his travel documents.

Agrokor, which began as a flower-growing operation in the former Yugoslavia in the 1970s, underwent a rapid expansion over the past decades that saw it run up debts of about 6 billion euros ($7 billion). The company employs about 60,000 people throughout the Croatia and neighbouring countries and is so large it now accounts for about 15 percent of Croatia’s gross domestic product. Its debt is too large for the government to rescue it without endangering the state’s financial stability including superannuation or pension funds that have invested in the company.

Although Todoric still formally owns 95 percent of Agrokor, the Croatian government, having rushed in a special law known as “Lex Agrokor” a few months ago has taken over management of the company. It is now trying to keep it alive through restructuring and negotiations with major creditors, which include Russia’s Sberbank and VTB bank, to which it owes 1.4 billion euros and who want their money back.

After he appeared on Europol’s fugitive arrest list, Todoric wrote on his blog that he was not hiding and that his conscience was clear.

As a man whose human rights are deeply violated I have the right to oppose political persecution,” Todoric wrote. “Today, I too am fighting against a corrupt system in Croatia,” he wrote on 6 November 2017, the day before he handed himself in to London Met Police.

Todoric has always claimed that the government illegally took over his company and indicated that he will fight his extradition on the grounds that he is the victim of political pursuit.

Political pursuit, Mr Todoric, has been there always, only before you used it to benefit yourself, to wrongfully create and amass wealth and now you use it to crucify those that helped you in that. Out with the lot of you and your communist heritage – in with lustration! Ina Vukic

 

 

 

The Cooking Of Agrokor’s Books

Agrokor Headquarters Zagreb Croatia

Croatia’s government claims that the results of the financial audit (first audit report released Thursday 5 October 2017) of key companies within Croatia’s ailing concern Agrokor justify the adoption of special law on extraordinary administration, which saw the state take control of the privately-held concern in April. My blogpost at that time emphasised an analysis that “when the government of a former communist country (Croatia) brings about and takes over with forced administration a calamitously failed private company (it subsidised and helped along the way as did the communist Yugoslavia regime via nationalisation of private assets and borrowed money injections) the gut tells you, regardless of the threat of thousands of job losses if that company sinks, you’re more than likely dealing with attempts of cover-ups of major incompetence, possible embezzlement come thefts and politically driven paths to sell and hand over the company or notable parts of it to a new entity.”

The extraordinary law rushed through the parliament then, commonly known as Lex Agrokor, has preserved jobs and contained the spread of systemic risk across the economy, the government said in a statement late on Thursday 5 October, after the Agrokor receiver unveiled the results of the audit conducted by PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP. The government had said and still maintains that Agrokor is a company of systemic importance for Croatia and its collapse could have a catastrophic impact on the economy.

The audit revealed enormous discrepancies between 2015 financial results of nine key companies within Agrokor reported earlier and the audited figures. Inflated value of assets, understated claims towards group members, over-estimated inventory and undocumented costs were some of the markers for the discrepancies.

UK based branch of PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP was named as auditor of the concern’s financial statements after preliminary probes revealed possible or likely accounting errors.

The revised financial report for the troubled Croatian retail, food and agriculture giant Agrokor, issued on Thursday, showed that the former management, led by company’s owner and founder Ivica Todoric, did not show the company’s full losses in its financial accounts. State extraordinary manager for Agrokor affairs Ante Ramljak presented the revised financial report for 2015 and 2016 which had been put together by the PriceWaterhouseCoopers audit agency.

Thursday’s report only included Agrokor’s major subsidiaries in the retail, wholesale, agriculture and food industries – Konzum, Tisak, Belje, PiK Vinkovci, Vupik, Ledo, Jamnica, Zvijezda and PiK Vrbovec.

The full consolidated report, including mother company Agrokor d.d., will be unveiled on Monday 9 October 2017 and then the government is expected to comment in detail

The revised report for the subsidiaries in 2015 showed 250 million euros more losses than Todoric’s management showed in its financial records. The state management’s figures showed that the subsidiary companies finished 2016 with 442 million euros in losses. The former management also inflated the capital worth of the subsidiary companies in 2015 by some 1.2 billion euros.

According to Thursday’s report, the subsidiary companies are worth 1.8 billion euros less than they were before 2015.

I will not say that any [legal] irregularities [in the previous management’s financial records] occurred. I won’t speak about this until we have the figures for Agrokor [d.d.]. Accounting irregularities occurred,” Ramljak answered when asked if there was criminal wrongdoing involved.

DORH [Croatian state attorney office] investigators are familiar with all these numbers,” he added.

Chief state attorney Dinko Cvitan had said in the past week that the full report will be important for DORH’s work.

The company’s role in the economy of Croatia is massive, with revenues of 6.5 billion euros in 2015 – almost 16 per cent of Croatia’s total GDP – and around 40,000 employees.

Agrokor employs another 20,000 people in neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, while it is believed that suppliers and companies for the Slovenian retailer Mercator – which Agrokor bought in 2014 – employ around 70,000 people in Slovenia as well.

Croatian news agency HINA reported on Friday 6 October that Maxim Poletaev, deputy chairman of the management board of Russia’s Sberbank – a major creditor of Agrokor, has suggested that Croatia should service the debt of the food-to-retail concern. Poletaev has told Russian news agency Interfax that the debt of Agrokor to the Russian bank is now debt of the Croatian government, which it should pay. Poletaev also said that Croatia should use government bonds to pay back Sberbank, according to HINA. Agrokor owes Sberbank some 1.1 billion euro ($1.3 billion). In August, the bank filed a complaint against Agrokor owner, Ivica Todoric, and, according to media reports, it now plans to sue the auditor which had previously verified Agrokor’s financial statements.

Charging Croatia’s government – that is, Croatian taxpayers and people in general, as debtor for corruption that went on in Agrokor and its subsidiary companies would add to the already calamitous plummeting of Croatia’s economy and living standards.

The web upon which depends a final outlook and solution regarding Agrokor and its possible crushing and devastating effect upon Croatia’s economy that could create a new army of poor, unemployed and devastation is currently in the finishing “touches” stages and nervousness and jitters are felt all the way to the parliament. Whether this nervousness hides attempts to cover up the identification of individuals in past echelons in power who have amassed wealth through theft is yet to be revealed. However, that matters have reached a sticky and nasty point is perhaps clear from Friday’s events in the parliament that saw the parliament’s meeting come to a stop due to inability to reach the needed quorum for the voting on appointment of three constitutional judges. Friday’s sitting of the parliament was geared for voting on appointment of three constitutional judges and on the establishment of a parliamentary inquiry commission for Agrokor. The needed quorum to vote for constitutional judges is two thirds of parliament members while the one needed to vote in the inquiry commission is the normal majority of half plus one. The Social Democratic Party/SDP refused to enter the parliamentary chamber and thus no voting was held on either of the two matters with the announcement by the ruling Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ that they hoped an agreement can be reached with SDP by Wednesday 11 October when it hopes to return the voting to agenda. The agreement relates to SDP’s insistence that former ministers can be appointed into the inquiry commission for Agrokor while HDZ disagrees on grounds of conflict of interest in the event that members of such commission could be called upon as witnesses in the unraveling of Agrokor dealings that has brought the country to its knees.

HDZ and SDP being at loggerheads is of course nothing new, but on this issue of investigating Agrokor’s dealings, obvious corruption, theft that appear to have been going on for decades while enjoying government support and significant financial subsidies and injections, the engaging at loggerheads becomes a marker of attempts to cover up serious past criminal dealings among powerful individuals. There are indications also that in order to achieve an agreement that would bring SDP back sides  on parliamentary seats, so that the voting in of constitutional judges can go ahead, HDZ may compromise and permit that certain category of former ministers may be appointed onto the inquiry commission for Agrokor! This, of course, would spell a disaster for independence of the commission’s dealings and deliverance – after all, all government ministers, regardless of their portfolio, are and always have been members of a tight club in which one covers for the other. 11th October 2017 is set to be a yet another stormy day in Croatia’s parliament on the matter of the establishment of the inquiry commission for Agrokor and its member composition. Monday 9th October when full audit report is expected for the whole Agrokor concern may indeed see the rats running in and out of parliamentary chamber, stalling the establishment of its inquiry commission for Agrokor. Ina Vukic

 

 

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